


i do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book

by aceofdiamonds



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-19
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 18:50:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1658759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofdiamonds/pseuds/aceofdiamonds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>damian is <i>forced</i> to read harry potter and everyone takes these books too seriously. </p><p>“Oh, you haven’t reached that bit yet? Ginny ends up as Harry’s loving wife.”</p><p>“Tt. Absurd. He doesn’t <i>need</i> a woman. He has to save the world, he can’t be protecting some <i>girl</i>.”</p><p>“Can’t he have both? And anyway, Ginny so holds her own when it comes to fighting. She doesn’t need Harry, either, you know, she’s amazing in her own right.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	i do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book

**Author's Note:**

> aged up damian a couple of years just because. also not so subtle pushing of damian crushing on steph a little in place of _my_ crushing on steph a little
> 
> warnings for harry potter spoilers?

"No, Todd, I don't want to."

"Come on, baby bird. It's an experience that every kid has to... experience."

Drake wanders into the room just as Damian is trying to come up with as many examples as to how he's not a normal child.

"What's going on?"

"Todd is pressuring me into reading books I have no wish to read." He crosses his arms and takes a couple of steps away from Todd and the book clutched in his hand.

"Yeah? What books?"

"Harry Potter," they both say at the same time. Drake laughs. Drake, against all his family’s assessments, is an idiot.

"You've read them, haven't you, Tim? Wouldn't you agree they're a necessity?"

"Absolutely," Drake nods then picks up his own book, something to do with machines and aliens. "Anyway, Damian, are you not supposed to be learning about pop culture? Harry Potter is the epitome of pop culture."

It's true Grayson and Cain have been harassing him into watching television programmes that Must Be Seen and reading books that Must Be Read, however distracting and unnecessary it is.

"Fine," he snaps, grabbing the book out of Todd's hand. "I'll read your book and then that's it. I don't care about who Spock is or Gossip Girl -- or The Beatles. It's not necessary for my work and therefore it is unneeded, understood?"

Todd holds his hands up with an expression that makes Damian want to punch him in the face. Not that that isn't a constant want but this expression makes it so much harder to remember what Father said about less trying to kill each other and more being civil for the sake of the team. "Sure, little brother. I'll have the second book for you later, just in case you're dying to know what happens next."

 

.

 

He reads the first one in a couple of hours and then it's dinner and the Chamber of Secrets is sitting on the edge of the table right where he sits, so he _might as well_ pick it up.

"Whatcha reading, sweetie?" Steph asks on her way to her seat. Her hand drops into his hair, scratching his scalp lightly with those nails she insists she keep so long and pointy and purple.

"You can't call me sweetie anymore," he protests, focusing his attention elsewhere from the hand which is oddly soothing. He has to act like it doesn't bother him, this is how their partnership works.

"Why not, sweetie?"

Todd laughs from across the table. Damian can't reach his leg to kick it from here.

"I'm fourteen."

"Doesn't stop me, D."

"I can see that." He grits his teeth.

She grabs the book from his hands, the other hand tightening in his hair as though that would be enough to hold him back. If he makes a fuss getting it back, however, it'll imply he has a real interest in it, which he doesn't.

He turns to watch a grin spread over Steph’s face, denting the areas around her eyes. "Sweet. I read this when I was a kid."

"I'm told it's a rite of passage." Damian stands up with a sigh and plucks it out of Steph's hands. He's been growing, everyone insists on commenting on it daily and she has to look up to him now. It makes him feel triumphant. He'll be almost as tall as Drake soon.

"Look at Little D getting protective over his kids book," Todd says, voice full of delight as he watches the scene. "I have another three copies, you know. Including the French and Spanish translations if you feel that would be more of a challenge."

Damian scowls and takes his seat again, balancing the book on his lap.

 

.

 

"Ginny's a badass." Steph says when she finds him later. He's just reached the climax, Harry is playing the hero yet again to save his friend's sister from a monster, and he can multi-task, obviously, but he wants peace.

He finds time to scoff at this statement. "She has merely been a plot point."

"Just wait. She's gonna rock your world."

At the moment Ginny is stumbling over her gratitude towards Harry. He's not going to hold his breath.

.

He finishes the third book with a snap and a quiet " _oh_ " that makes Drake look up from where he's sitting beside him.

"What?"

"Lupin."

"Werewolf? I know, right? Who saw that coming?"

"Are you telling me you didn't work that out? His name literally translates from Latin as wolf, he was absent during full moons, his Boggart. You're a supposed detective, Drake." The foreshadowing in these books is ridiculous. "No. I didn't expect him to leave."

"Yeah, well, Snape's a bastard, you'll see more evidence of that soon."

He's seen a substantial amount of evidence to back that up so far and he's been told _he_ has questionable morals. He doesn't share secrets that aren't his to share. 

Drake replies to this with: "Jay dropped off the Goblet of Fire earlier; I think he left it in the cave. Watch out, Dami, things are about to get so much darker."

Damian fights criminals most nights, his father is Batman, his grandfather is a super-villain. He is a _trained_ _assassin_. This family holds too much faith in these books.

 

.

 

"So, who's your favourite character?"

Of course Grayson has analysed everything to do with this series. Grayson has analysed everything to do with every series that has grabbed the juvenile public's attention over the years.

"Harry," he says, deeming that a good enough response before he shoots his grapple and leaps off of the roof.

"Yeah? You don't hear that much."

Damian doesn't want to get involved in such a conversation but the night has been quiet, only a pathetic excuse of an armed robbery so far, and if he doesn't answer someone else is going to get involved over the communication link and then it will unbearable, so. "I thought the hero was always the most liked."

"Nah, everyone seems to prefer Ron or Hermione or Neville."

"Neville?" The fat lump who has only shown progress in plant study and stupidity.

"Oh, yeah, he hasn't been very impressive so far. Just wait."

Damian rolls his eyes, jumps onto the roof of a convenience store with half its lights broken. "Everyone keeps telling me to wait."

Grayson laughs, and it's lucky he's Nightwing again, because Batman doesn't laugh. Not the way Grayson always does. "The foreshadowing gives you _chills_."

There's been so much foreshadowing and now Voldemort is back there's been an avalanche more. He's on the fifth one now and he's still not ever going to admit he's enjoying them but he feels he has to continue just to see how it all ends. Harry isn't too insufferable as a protagonist and the writing is so easy to read it's a suitable break from any other work.

"Why do you like Harry, then?" Grayson asks later as they're making their way back to the manor. Red Robin's been injured apparently, a broken collar bone, and the night has been so dull anyway that the Hood should be enough to keep the city under control for a couple of hours.

Damian waits a few moments before he answers. "I can empathise with how he feels, particularly in the first two books." He turns to look out of the window; Grayson is always trying to talk to him, get them to bond in a variety of ridiculous ways. This is something he's probably going to analyse before taking it to his father and expressing his concerns about Damian's relations with a fictional character. He adds on, "Also, he appears to be the most skilled at magic."

He sees Grayson nod out of the corner of his eye. "It's the orphan thing, isn't it? Moving to a whole new world, adapting."

A shrug. "Tt. I'm not an orphan."

"Yeah but you were brought into a new place, new people. I know how you feel, D. It was overwhelming for a while. Still can be, sometimes."

"Just like Harry." He's rolling his eyes, he swears. He's not having one of those awful bonding experiences over a character, he's not relating to a _wizard_ who can't string a sentence together half the time. He's not letting Grayson reach over and touch his arm.

“Exactly. Have you reached Dumbledore’s Army yet? That’s just like us, see?”

“You’re not actually comparing us to a group of school children with wands, are you?”

Grayson doesn't answer. Damian rests his head against the window. 

"It's alright to enjoy books for pleasure, you know," Grayson says as they drive into the Cave.

"I know that."

They get changed in silence, washing off grime from the city, and Damian ignores the laugh he hears when he pulls the Order of the Phoenix out of his locker and heads up the stairs into the manor with it tucked under his arm.

 

.

 

"Bruce is clearly a Gryffindor," Grayson insists, shovelling a heap of cereal into his mouth.

Drake looks up from where he's been staring despondently at his coffee. It's his third cup of the morning; Damian keeps count sometimes. His habit is unhealthy to the point of almost worry, if he cared about Drake's addictions. "Why?"   

Grayson ticks them off on his fingers, so sure of this assessment even though the _wrongness_ of it is clear in the room. "He's brave, courageous, rash."

"If you're using that logic then every vigilante is a Gryffindor," Todd points out. "B is a Ravenclaw."

Father looks up from his paper, opens his mouth, then shuts it again.

"Yeah. I think you're right," Cain agrees. "Dick, you're a Hufflepuff, Tim is a Ravenclaw too --"

Todd snorts. "Two sides of the same coin, eh, little bro? Even at Hogwarts."

Damian snickers when there's a thud and Todd reaches down to rub at his shin. "We're Slytherins," he says referring to the three left. He's felt sympathy towards the house of the snake over his reading, despite his preference of Harry as a character. They seem to be unfairly treated by faculty and students alike, even Dumbledore who he is sure is hiding some things from the people who foolishly trust him blindly.

Grayson swipes a slice of toast from Father's plate, mumbles through his argument. "Fair enough with the rest of them but I say Cass is a Gryffindor."

She accepts this easily enough; from what Damian has gathered the inter-house qualities are a grey area, it's anyone's say as to who goes where. "What about Steph?" she asks then.

"Hufflepuff?" Drake offers, swallows the rest of his fourth cup of coffee. "Gryffindor? You have to remember, though, it's not what qualities you have it's what ones you value."

"But that changes everything," Todd whines. "I value bravery! And loyalty!"

"They can be Slytherins assets too," Damian counters.

"The house system is a mess."

“I have no idea what any of you are talking about,” Father says, folding his paper and stealing toast back from Grayson. “But I like the sound of this Gryffin... thing.”

“You’re just saying that because Cass is one.”

“I keep saying I’m the favourite and no one believes me,” Cain sighs, dropping a kiss on Father’s cheek before waltzing out of the room. “Sit up and smell the evidence.”

 

.

 

“Ginny impressed you yet?”

Steph punches the drug smuggler in his face, kicks his stomach before he can shut his mouth. Damian grabs his already knocked-out partner, swings him over to the wall to tie them together. Their speed and efficiency would make some people proud. The people who never seem to be watching when they do things like this.

He kicks the first man in the stomach again for good measure then leads the way through the alley to the street while Batgirl calls it in. “She’s proved her worth.”

“Her worth to Harry?”

“What?”

He knows she’s doing that stupid thing with her eyebrows under her cowl. He aims a kick at her shin then scowls like he meant it when she easily leaps out of the way.

“Oh, you haven’t reached that bit yet? Ginny ends up as Harry’s loving wife.”

“Tt. Absurd. He doesn’t _need_ a woman. He has to save the world, he can’t be protecting some _girl_.”

“Can’t he have both? And anyway, Ginny so holds her own when it comes to fighting. She doesn’t need Harry, either, you know, she’s amazing in her own right.”

“Do you love this character, Batgirl?”

She shrugs, hops onto a bin then up onto the roof beside it. Damian follows.“Everyone loves Ginny Weasley.”

 

.

 

He finishes the seventh book three days after he started the first one. He would have finished sooner but he’s too busy a lot of the time and there’s so many distractions in this house but he’s still confident that he read them the quickest out of everyone. Apart from maybe Todd, who reads anything and everything all the time, and Drake, who does everything in a weird obsessive way that people seem to find endearing.

“I’ve completed what you told me to do, Todd,” holding The Deathly Hallows out when Todd’s face twists into confusion. He drops the hardback into his hand and turns around, ready to go back to other _important_ things such as Titus, but Todd reaches out and touches his shoulder to stop him and it’s clear he wants to _discuss_ this. Todd always wants to discuss books with no one who wants to listen. “Yes I still dislike Snape, yes I guessed Harry was a Horcrux, no I didn’t like the epilogue, and no I didn’t cry.”

“Not even a little?” Todd grins. “Not even at Lupin?”

“No.” The death that had been the most surprising had been Fred Weasley, he thinks. It is clear this Rowling woman had no qualms killing off as many characters as she liked. But the one that he had found the most affecting was Harry’s sacrifice, and if he looks into it too much, if he mentions it to anyone, they’ll leap onto the comparison with Batman, with his Father’s death while defending the city, and he doesn’t want that. They’re suffocating with their sympathy; tight hugs every time you turn, twists of their mouths and tilts of their heads that make Damian want to break something and shatter the vulnerability around him, and so he keeps his mouth shut. “His son has Harry as a guardian now, he should be alright.”

Todd rolls his eyes and flips open the book at a random page, his head ducked down as he walks out of the room. “You’re heartless, little bro!” he calls over his shoulder. “And that’s coming from me. I sobbed when Harry found out he was a Horcrux. _Sobbed_.”

 

.

 

He seeks out his Father in his study a while later. He’s working on an anti-virus serum so Damian settles under the chair with Titus curled up beside him, just where Bruce’s feet are. The Great Dane drops his head onto the feet, snuffling when Damian runs a hand over his neck, down his back.

“What’s wrong, Damian?” Father after a few minutes. He’s let Titus use his feet as a pillow, Damian sees, smiling softly to himself. He thinks it’s funny sometimes when Grayson points out just how big a softie Batman really is when half of the family insist in draping themselves all over him. Damian doesn’t do it much; he doesn’t really know why. He’s fourteen now, as he keeps telling everyone, he doesn’t need constant contact. He reaches out and curls his hand at his father’s ankle. “Damian?”

“Grayson’s going to come looking for me soon and he’s going to want to talk about nonsensical emotions.”

“Oh. So you’re hiding?”

“I’m just sitting here.”

“Okay.”

He moves his leg out from under Titus and closer to Damian. He wonders what a professional would think about the way this house is run.

 

.

 

“I finished them,” he tells Cain and Steph when they corner him in the living room just as _Extreme_ _Makeover_ : _Home_ _Edition_ is starting and ask what chapter he’s on. He shuffles along the couch a few inches and they cram into the space left, a tangle of limbs and giggles that have him reaching for the remote and increasing the volume.

“So...?”

“What?”

“What d’you think?”

“Either be more specific or stop talking.”

“What did you think of that ending?”

There’s at least three legs trapping him to the couch and they may not be up to his standards, Steph at least, he knows about Cain’s upbringing, but they’re quick and strong. He sighs. “The epilogue tied everything up too neatly, I thought.”

“And Albus Severus is an shitty name, right?” Steph insists, picking up the other remote and flipping through the menu. Damian clicks it back -- this house is going for a _Superman_ theme. Clearly they have _awful_ taste.  

“Both those men were unworthy of such a tribute,” he agrees.

“I told you about Ginny, didn’t I? Total badass.”

“I like McGonagall,” Cain adds. “And Hermione.”

“There’s a good selection of women,” Steph says, and she’s going to go one of her rants here, he can tell. She sits up a little straighter, frowns. “Unlike some other book series. The Lord of the Rings --”

“Read them next, Damian,” Cass interrupts. “Tim got me the audiobooks for Christmas last year and the films are so incredible and so long. If you liked Harry Potter --”

“I didn’t say I liked them. I was forced --”

Steph waves a hand and she’s doing that thing she knows he hates where she mouths along and pretends she knows everything he’s going to say before he gets a chance to say it. He might have to ask Father for a different partner again but he requested a change a month ago and nothing has happened yet.

“Yeah yeah, you were _forced_. Sweetie, Jason only told you to read the first one, you picked up the rest all by yourself.”

“I don’t like leaving things unfinished.”

“Even children’s books? About wizards and the struggle between good and evil? About the love story of Ron and Hermione?”

He crosses his arms, watches a man spill blue paint all over himself and the man beside him. Drake says he watches these shows for the feeling of superiority over the rest of mankind -- it’s not as though it’s wrong to have that mentality. “I was promised no more harassment if I read those goddam books.”

“Oh, Damian,” Cain says a smile. “That’s not how it works in this family at all. We thought you knew that by now.”

 

.

 

There are films. _Eight_ films -- two for the last one which is _obviously_ a scheme to draw more money out of the willing public.

They all thunder in, scrambling for seats on couches and armchairs and on the arms of these chairs. Cass finds a spot in the tiny space between Drake and Todd along from Damian and when Father comes in, no one is safe from this, Grayson finds a way to balance between Steph and his chairs with most of his body on the arm of Bruce’s.

He protests strongly when the viewing of all these films is deemed mandatory.

“You always say no one can tell you what to do,” Drake points out, sticking his tongue out when Damian glares at him. He has found some sort of twisted joy in witnessing the way Damian’s body is changing, the way his voice changes sometimes when he's not expecting it and the speed his legs are growing. It’s pathetic. “Get up and leave if you really want to.”

But he wants to see how far the film differs from the books, if the actors look anything like how he’s imagined, and how they’re going to create the castle.

“Sit down and watch the film, Damian.”

He does. Only because he’s forced to.

  
  
  



End file.
